You're reading: Where to buy eco-friendly goodies in Kyiv

Following the world's rush towards healthy eating and organic products, a wide variety of restaurants, stores and even hotels claiming to sell organic food have emerged in Kyiv.

Following the world’s rush towards healthy eating and organic products, a wide variety of restaurants, stores and even hotels claiming to sell organic food have emerged in Kyiv.

Organic certification in Europe requires producers to avoid modern synthetic inputs during the production cycle before organic food arrives on your plate. Ukrainian producers who are keen to be called organic in Ukraine may receive European certificates. But – to call a spade a spade – most Ukrainian farm products are better called natural or ecologically safe, rather than organic, because the legal field for organic certification in Ukraine is still itself “wild.”

Glossary Organic Cafe (www.glossary.ua) offers a one-stop-shop for all that is organic. One may dine on an organic meal and leave with an eco-bag stuffed with organic cosmetics. Among the organic offerings with American and European certification, the cafe serves green tea (Hr 42), cocoa (Hr 25), oatmeal with mushroom and bacon (Hr 23) and pancakes with salmon, avocado and sour cream (Hr 57).

Beverages astonish by their exotic variety, such as a smoothie with melon, mango, avocado, orange and mint (Hr 45) and a lemon squash with mineral water and lime (Hr 25). The head of Glossary’s marketing department, Andriy Podoprogora, says that all perishables from Ukraine don’t have organic certificates but “are grown according to traditional technologies of organic production.”

Eco-gastronomy Arbequina (www.arbequinacafe.blogspot.com) collaborates with Spanish and Ukrainian farmers and offers traditional homemade meals. Spanish olive oil, olives, goat cheese and jamon are transformed into cheese and meat pies (Hr 38) or form a part of goat cheese, grape and tarragon salads (Hr 79). In assessing Ukrainian suppliers, restaurant administrator Andriy Viharev distinguishes between Baraboi farm in Odessa region and babushkas at the market, the latter being where “I go every day at 6 a.m. to select products for our restaurant.”

Arbequina claims to test product quality on themselves by trying and selecting the best suppliers. Viharev points out that certificates often don’t prove anything. “Anybody may buy that certificate,” he says.

Arbequina restaurant organizes a tasting at the Bessarabian market during an eco-show held in August. (Andriy Shevchenko)

Gastronomic Bar “Barsuk” (www.barsuk.kiev.ua) claims that 95 percent of its meals are made from organic ingredients and its menu changes four to five times a year.

Director Dmytro Borysov boasts that Barsuk has global ecological certification ISO 14000 that requires implementation of ecologically-friendly management of the company. Another feature of Barsuk is its “open kitchen” concept, in which anybody may observe cooking process in person or online.

The products from Spain, Italy and France are organically certified by importing countries while a better part of their products are grown on privately-owned farm.

Borysov says that they can’t do otherwise than grow organically as “it’s cheaper to use manure for fertilization than to buy expensive un-organic chemicals.” A plate of organic meat will cost Hr 99 and a cheese platter for Hr 97. You can pick up baked bread with homemade butter and spices (Hr 15), croutons with caramelized onion and French cheese (Hr 49) and seasonal salad with goats cheese and strawberry syrup (Hr 77).

Eco-homestead “Maison Blanche” (www.maison-blanche.com.ua) bursts with an eco-hotel, organic restaurant and organic store Nature Boutique located just outside Kyiv. A night in its eco-decorated hotel room will cost Hr 490 – 800. An all-inclusive dinner from handmade products and organic ingredients costs up to Hr 100. At Nature Boutiques, specialized in certified and non-certified organic products, one may find Ukrainian European certified sugar-free organic juice “Pan-Eco” (Hr 46). Also lurking on the shelves are Vietnamese organic tea (Hr 36), English organic chocolate, Italian pasta, Spanish olive oil and a wide variety of cereals from sprouted grains. On weekends, guests are entertained with master classes on wool spinning or pottery.

Delight store (www.delight-ukraine.com) offers a wide variety of foreign delicacies, including certified organic produce. The selection of products is entrusted to employees, who are sent to private European farms on work missions, says head of marketing department Nina Sobik. Produce includes organic Spanish wines and French cheese from Hr 150 and jamon. Some products are delivered from Ukrainian farms where the quality is tested personally by Delight experts. “Products from Pripyat definitely won’t appear on our encounters,” says Sobik.

A girl enjoys jamon from the food stalls at the Bessarabian market. (Andriy Shevchenko)

Wine network “Good Wine” (www.goodwine.ua) doesn’t contend itself with simply selling organic wine (from Hr 130) but offers eco–beer (Hr 20) with appetizers: organically-certified French cheese, Parmesan and Roquefort and bread. A friendly sommelier is on hand to educate you on wine’s bio–dynamism and the strange owners of organic vineyards who “rely on stars and bury the bones in earth.”

For those who don’t want to travel for their organic delights, “Dobroe Utro” (www.facebook.com/UtroDobroe) will deliver organic Ukrainian milk (0.8 liters for Hr 16) with a certificate attached and croissants (Hr 8,99) or baguettes (Hr 14,99).

Kyiv Post staff writer Tetiana Monahkova can be reached at [email protected] and Will Fitzgibbon can be reached at [email protected]